Listen to Jim: http://www.jimreedbooks.com/mp3/friendme.mp3 or read on…

A mere 17,000 years ago (in Lascaux and a thousand other places),
folks were tweeting and text messaging and friending and linking and
graffiti-ing to their little hearts’ content…only, they didn’t call it the
same thing back then.
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Here at the Museum of Fond Memories at Reed Books, I can’t help
being reminded of this fact, constantly. Each time I pick up an artifact
and examine it for its internally-sealed, private history, I have the tingly
feeling that this long-lived object is a time capsule, and that it is my
responsibility to translate and forward its contents for you, my patron
and customer…for you, my heir.
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For instance:
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From the hundreds of old letters and postcards that reside in the shop,
I pick up one item at random…and within that item I could spend a day,
lost in translation. It’s a hundred-year-old love letter. There’s a mustard
stain on the second page—what could we learn of old-time mustard-processing,
were we to have it analyzed? There’s a pressed four-leaf clover for
luck—a tiny, carefully selected gift to the recipient of the letter. There
is legible and concise handwriting—when did schools stop teaching
the art of clear, loving and personal penmanship?  There is correct
spelling and sentence structure (I still spell out every word in my tweets
and textings). There is florid letterhead with tiny angels cavorting—talk
about uploading images! There is news of births and deaths and illnesses
and accomplishments—all described fully and with competent involvement
and emotion—no LOLs, only true and passionate opinions and thoughts.
 And there is evidence of time spent in considering what the message would
include, carefully omitting sentiments and whinings that would only irritate
the recipient. And there was time to re-consider what the letter would contain,
since the ritual of folding, inserting, licking of envelope and stamp, sealing and
addressing, would provide a meditative break, time to change or make better
the message before it was posted.
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And, perhaps most importantly, the letter-writer knew full well that the
contents of the envelope would serve as a permanent record, would be
re-opened and re-read for messages hidden or implied, would be shared
with others, would be placed with dozens of other letters in a lavender
box or bulging scrapbook, to be revisited down the generations, would
be a picture of that moment for all time, just as the Lascaux cave walls
are still probed and enjoyed, a mere 17,000 years later
 
© 2011 A.D. by Jim Reed

 

Listen to Jim: http://www.jimreedbooks.com/mp3/whatchagot.mp3 or read on…

 

Back in times more drear than these, in times when I still believed

you had to work for uncaring bosses because there were never

enough caring bosses around…back in those times, I would dutifully

and extravagantly do my job to the best of my ability. In order to

maintain sanity, in order to nurture my concealed Muse, I would

compensate myself through the pleasure of books.

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I can remember days when my jobs took me far afield. After doing

more than my share of work in a strange city, I would knock off and

search for old books in old bookstores. My recreation, my therapy.

.

Trolling for treasure was my private pleasure. I never dreamed I would

one day be dealing in artifacts for a living, so I just enjoyed the moment

and remained focused on my private hobby.

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From the outside, an old bookstore was just that—a place that magically

appeared in my travels and allowed me to enjoy its existence. Once I left

the store, in many cases never to return, I assumed it would always be there

should I need it again.

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In other words, I took old bookstores for granted.

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Now, right here in the present, I am experiencing an old bookstore from

the inside out. Now, I see customers who remind me of the pre-bookstore-owner me.

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Example:

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A little girl is shopping with her dad and sisters, and it is obvious

that an old bookstore is a new experience for her. At one point, she

wanders over to me and asks, wide-eyed, “Those diaries over

there…did you know that people have written in some of them?” I

nod, speechless for a jiffy. “Why would you keep them here?” she asks.

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My mouth, always speedier than my brain, quips, “Why would I keep

diaries that were not written in? I can’t imagine selling blank ones…except

to people who want to keep their own diaries.”

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She looks back at the mailbox area where thousands of old letters and

postcards and scrapbooks and snapshots arrange themselves in a merry

jumble. She’s absorbing.

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“And just think,” I do go on, “We have all these notes and love letters and

secrets that people kept a hundred years ago…and we keep them safe for

other people to read and appreciate. We’re paying our respects to the lives

they once led.”

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I stop at this point, lest I preach too much.

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She and her sister wind up reading some of the letters and showing them

to their father.

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Later, she purchases a blank diary. What will happen next? You tell me.

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Another example:

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A woman who is spending a lot of time looking for books from a list

asks, “What would you have all these thirty-three-and-a-thirds here for?”

She is disdainful. “Why would you keep these?”

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I get preachy again. “Because we sell them to people who love to listen to

them, who appreciate their wonderful sound.”

.

“You sell them? How can they play them?”

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“We sell record players, too,” I answer.

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She has to ponder this, never having considered that things she once

discarded from her own life might still be cherished by people living other lives.

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One more example of how the urban bookstore I’m so used to seems alien to

first-time visitors:

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“What are all those police doing out there? What happened?” An anxious customer

is a little flushed after being outside the store.

.

“Uh, what police?” I really am not aware that anything has “happened” outside but,

this being the City, I would not be surprised.

.

I go outside to see what’s up. There, standing and chatting and merrily smoking,

are the security guard from next door and the security guard from across the street.

I assume that something I see—and inhale—every day can be something odd and

troublesome to an outsider.

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I re-enter the store. “Oh, it’s just a couple of security guards.” I put my

the-City-is-safer-than-you-think spin on it and continue, “that’s one of the

reasons the crime rate is so much lower than in the suburbs. Many buildings

have their own security, in addition to the downtown security force the regular

city police.”

.

The customer relaxes and gets busy amassing an enormous stack of old

American Rifleman magazines he covets. Maybe his memory of Downtown

will be a benevolent one.

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And so on.

.

Each customer brings perceptions I can’t divine until they reveal themselves,

so I’m learning something new every few minutes. My customers are my

instructors, I their student.

.

I wonder whether they ever get as much out of these encounters as I do

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http://www.jimreedbooks.com  

© 2011 A.D. by Jim Reed

 

Listen to Jim: http://www.jimreedbooks.com/mp3/two-dollar_books.mp3 or read on…

 

 

THE SCIENTIFIC PROCESS OF MARKING BOOKS

DOWN TO $2.00 EACH

 

Today is Tuesday, March 15, just after everybody lost all memory for an hour on Sunday so that they forever wonder why they can’t remember how it got to be an hour later without their knowledge. Fortunately, some of them “get” it and realize that Daylight Savings Time did it to them—removed an hour of life and memory. Good news is, in a few months we’ll get that hour back and still won’t know how to put it to good use.

.

Where was I?

.

It’s Tuesday, almost opening-up-the-bookstore time. I’m preparing to roll the $2.00 book rack out to the sidewalk, hopefully to entice customers to pause in their onward rush, hoping to attract new customers, wishing folks would enter the store wanting to see even more.

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I check the rack to see whether its holdings have grown stale. I remember a lesson learned decades ago in Green Bay, Wisconsin: “If you want your customers to think they are getting a good deal, give them an actual good deal!”

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Are the bargains real? Well, there’s a first-edition Mark Childress (he just got on the New York Times bestseller list for the first time). So, that classifies as a good deal. There are Spider Man comic books of old—anyone who loves Spidey will like that. There’s a copy of Huckleberry Finn. Any price for Mark Twain is a bargain. There’s a how-to book on how to make your life perfect—if you object to the $2.00 cover charge you aren’t very motivated to rise from your misery, are you? Just guessing.

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And so on…

.

I’ve now satisfied myself that the $2.00 books are worth much more than $2.00. Now, about the LP vinyl recordings for $2.00 each. There’s Louis Armstrong, Oscar Peterson, the Blackwood Bro’s, Lena Horne…need I say more? $2.00 for an hour with Satchmo beats any concert price I’ve ever paid, except for the times in my hometown that I gained free admittance to lectures and shows just because I was a reporter. I have fond memories of experiencing—and meeting—Andy Warhol, Dave Brubeck, Aldous Huxley, Carl Sandburg, the Kingston Trio, Bennett Cerf, Erskine Caldwell, and a plethora of celebrities who came to town in those long-ago years. All worth the price of admission.

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Others I got to enjoy in person in later years include Gregory Peck, Marie and Donny Osmond, Vincent Price, Charles Laughton, Mel Torme, George Shearing, Ramsey Lewis, Fred Willard, Al Franken, Stan Kenton, Rich Little, Gay Talese, Buddy Rich, Milt Jackson, George Carlin, Quincy Jones, Oscar Peterson, PDQ Bach, Ella Fitzgerald, Ray Bradbury, Brian Aldiss, Edward O. Wilson, Bob Hope, and on and on.

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I suppose this bookstore thing is all about me and my fond memories. But I also think it’s more than that. You see, selling their recordings and books and films is a way I can pass my appreciation of their talent—and my recollections—on to you. Listening to me go on and on is one thing, but the proof is in the reading, watching and hearing.

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OK, so now I’ve assured myself that the bargains are bargains, I can in good conscience open the shop for business.

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C’mon down

.

 

© 2011 A.D. by Jim Reed

http://www.jimreedbooks.com/index.php

 

Listen to Jim: http://www.jimreedbooks.com/mp3/heel.mp3 or read on…

 

THE HEALING HEEL

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I’m sitting at breakfast many decades ago, watching me watching my family.

Elementary School gathering, worried about what she’ll wear and how she’ll do.

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Brother Ronny is helping Mother pack his lunch as he carefully picks over his food.

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I’m grabbing for the next-to-last slice of bread from the wrapper on the table,

but one of the slices is the heel, so it doesn’t count. Everybody knows that the

heel is the most undesirable piece of light bread, and everybody avoids it. I

hesitate, unwilling to take the final non-heel slice, because Mother has taught

us never to take the last of anything. I decide I can do without bread this morning.

.

But Mother always notices everything—especially those things you wish she

wouldn’t notice. She quickly pulls both slices out of the wrapper, places the

“whole” one on my plate as if unconsciously, and starts buttering the heel for

herself. Or oleo margarine-ing it, to be more precise.

.

I sigh in relief and treat myself to a nice jellied sandwich to go with my

brown-sugared oatmeal and salt-and-peppered eggs, while Mother makes

do with the piece of bread nobody else will touch.

.

It is at this moment that I recognize the curse with which I will be saddled

the rest of my life. I can’t help seeing things. The small invisible camera

over my shoulder records everything—everything I wish to see, everything

I wish I’d never seen, everything I imagine I’m seeing, everything I wish

you could see, everything I’ve ever seen and will in time see. Other writers

and would-be writers have confirmed this curse with me—they have it, too

.

The jellied bread doesn’t taste quite as good as it should, because I recognize

my selfishness, and I recognize Mother’s sacrifice—one of a hundred small

sacrifices she’ll make on behalf of her family this week and most of the weeks

of her remaining life. My shoulder camera records more than I will ever be able

to write about—how Mother gives up part of her social life to raise her family,

how she denies herself a new dress and instead makes a dress for Barbara,

how she saves the flour sacks to make shirts for us boys, how she gives up

some of her own aspirations so that we can live ours.

.

Down all the days, wherever I travel, I and my camera keep noticing the

beauty of other mothers, other people, whenever they take one step back

to allow me my moment of stepping high, how they are there to help me

without even asking for or receiving credit, how they come and go from

my life with such grace and ease. How they never ask our thanks.

.

Mother constructed me, nurtured me, stood by while I fluttered from the

nest, then kept up with me and my accomplishments and tribulations for

many  years, waiting patiently until I was mature enough to appreciate her

aloud or in my writings.

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Now she stands behind my camera, occasionally reminding me of her wisdoms,

now and then chiding me when I forget who I am and who I came from. And

she still grabs the heel first, just to gift me with one more small, unselfish

favor…hoping I’ll pass the wisdoms and favors on to others

 

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©  2011 A.D. by Jim Reed

www.jimreedbooks.com